IRS

Fear has been a huge motivator in my life. It’s why I started HEDGEHOUSE back in my garage. Neither my husband nor I are geniuses with money, and we got into some back tax trouble. It was super easy to slide into and really painful to get out of. Like gaining weight. 

So there I was in LA, living in Justin Long's McMansion with two babies, 3 maybe 4 dogs, a cat, and looking down the barrel of my first real big life problem. Now, I’m not gonna tell you the number but it was more than we had. By a few miles. And I’ll be totally honest, I was scared. 

I’d like to say the decision to start my own business was like that "Feel Good" movie where I get the idea and then it’s quickly followed by the “upward trending” montage sequence ( insert upbeat/inspiring pop song from the 80s here) followed by an insurmountable problem that jeopardizes all my hard work, only to be saved at the last minute and given a new more healthy perspective on life and business. And, we all live happily ever after. 

Sure, there have been some similarities to that “feel good” movie model, but it’s been in such slow motion that it’s pretty much sucked the joy out of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love what we do at HEDGEHOUSE and WHEN they make the quintessential film about what it’s like to start a business in America as a woman in this millennium, we will be the ones to tell that story because man have we been through it, and we are just getting started. But I digress... 

So the IRS came knocking. It was around 2008. And the IRS, however bureaucratic they appear to be, at their core they are more similar to Martin Scorsese’s portrayal of gangsters in “Goodfellas"; the general mantra being - Fuck you pay me my money. And that’s where I freaked. Freeze Frame. 

I thought What if something happens to my husband. What if he dies? What if he never works again? What if what... if what... what if... and those what ifs kept me up at night. Had me acting out in self-centered behaviors here and there; those fears started to rule me, but, while I have done plenty of time on the dark side, NOTHING EVER RULES ME FOR TOO LONG. So somewhere over the next year I started to get with that part of me that is invincible, and that’s when HH started to germinate. With a lot of false starts.

There was "Interior designer." Man, did I suck at that. I just could not give a fuck about what light switch plate you want.

"Throw-pillow maker." Let’s face it, I have nothing to add to the table in that market; throw pillows are like opinions, everyone’s got one. 

"Furniture restorer." Great idea! I was good, too but I needed a van and I needed a warehouse and manpower. Not practical. Not gonna work right now. 

What I needed was something that was new but old, lightweight so I could carry it around to stores, and mostly something I would use myself. Something I wanted. Something to keep my dreams alive. To get behind that HEDGE! Something that embodied that life I wanted that the IRS had put a temporary hold on. So with that - enter montage sequence and voila! 

The THROWBED is born.

So much has happened since then. So much. Unreal to think about, and we still are not even halfway there (wherever the hell that is.)  I think dreams come from all different kinds of places, and making them real is anything but dreamy. But chasing that idea is. We are the HARE. And that HEDGE is what we work towards, around, under and over to get to a better place. A safer place, a place where our dreams come true.

Never give up. Chip away. You’ll get there.

A few of our fav businesses started by women:

 

Mischa Lampert

Marie Chantal

Clic | Christiane Celle

Ernst Reiko | Erika Ehrman-Repola

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